Explanation: Using
x-ray data from the orbiting
Chandra Observatory
along with radio data from the
Very Large Array,
a team of researchers has
discovered evidence for
a new example of one of the most bizarre objects known to
modern astrophysics -- a
neutron star.
Embedded within
supernova remnant IC443,
the suspected neutron star
appears as the reddish source at the lower right
in this false-color x-ray image.
Perhaps 20 kilometers across but with more mass than the Sun,
this ultracompact object is the collapsed core of a massive
star.
The core collapsed when the star, located a reassuring
5,000 light-years away
in the constellation
Gemini, exploded long ago.
How long ago?
Judging from the characteristic
bow wave shape of the
x-ray nebula
the researchers have estimated the speed of the neutron
star as it plows away from the explosion site.
Comparing the speed to the measured distance traveled from
the center of IC443,
the team,
three high school students and a teacher from the
North Carolina School for Science and Mathematics,
calculated that the light from the supernova
explosion arrived at Earth about 30,000 years ago.